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Welcome back to Face to Greg where we only care about what I care about and today we care about Shadowline’s upcoming Aletheia. Now, I’m a huge Greek mythology fan, so I’m mega excited about this upcoming book and I’m hella excited to be able to chat with the book’s creator, Bob LeFevre. So without further ado…

Greg: Oh, crud. There goes my column career. I can’t get the creator’s name right, now my bosses are going to chain me up to a rock and send vultures to eat my liver. Before they do that, for those who are uncool and not in the know, tell us about yourself and Aletheia!!

BL: I’ve been an illustrator all my life; I went to Columbus College of Art and Design, Kendall College of Art and Design. I've worked as Comic Strip, Comic Book and a freelance illustrator for about the last 10 years now. I'm currently the creator, writer and illustrator for Aletheia which is being published through Shadowline Image.

Aletheia is a comic that basically takes Greek Myth and throws it into a modern day time setting. The current story I’m working on is about the reincarnation of Medusa. Fun stuff!!!

Greg: Fun stuff indeed! How long have you been working on this? From the preview pages, it looks like a lot of hard work and slaving.

BL: Believe it or not Aletheia started about 8 years ago. I’ve kinda been playing around with them and the concept for awhile. They first appeared in Digital Webbing Presents #17 as a short black and white story. I would love to some day have that story colored and put in the back of another Aletheia book just to give people an idea of where it started.

As far as the art goes I think when people see the 2nd issue they’ll agree when I say the Aletheia team is really hitting on all cylinders and just getting better with every passing day.

Greg: Well, everything I've seen thus far on this book is amazing. Everything is incredibly fluid and matches the writing I've read. So a fantastic job on that.

BL: Thanks. I wanted this issue to move fast. Sometimes I feel like a first issue can get bogged down in build up so my thoughts were if I hit the ground running then I could make the hook.

Greg: Now, you’ve mentioned that this book is basically your take on Greek mythology in modern day setting. Lately there have been quite a few books like that coming out. We've had that fantastic Ares: God of War mini with Michael Avon Oeming and Travel Foreman, and lately there's the sudden interest with Hercules with a lot of twists on his back story over at Marvel with Greg Pak and Khoi Pham. And that's not all! Jay Faerber has a one-shot pilot coming out for Top Cow about Medusa's son in modern times as a P.I. We even have Image’s The Perhapanauts which isn't really based on Greek myth, but from the name alone, it has that whole "influenced from Jason and the Argonauts" feel. What is it about Greek mythology that suddenly grabs people's attention? And what do you think makes your take stick out in all these different tellings of “modern day” Greek?

BL: Unfortunately I can’t really comment on the other books because I haven’t had the chance to check them out yet. Other then seeing some images from the Hercules book I really don’t know what they are about. With that being said I think the reason why not only do creators enjoy making stories based on these characters but I think people enjoy reading them because they are in essence the foundation of the modern comic books. They really do reflect the super hero genre quite a bit. You have everything, drama, action, adventure, mystery...you name it. My thought process when creating Aletheia was to take super heroes and mythology and combine the two, to me it's a no brainer

For starters I’m not going to be retelling anything and I think that in it self will make it stick out. The stories are perfect the way that they are. To me retelling them would be like saying Spiderman has a Brand New Day. I’m building on the past in a sense. It’s as if you were sitting at your computer as you are right now and Hades bust into your house. You'd flip out and not know what the heck is going on. Same idea is applied with Aletheia.

Visually I think Aletheia stands out because it’s going at all of these very heavy subjects with a light heart. Most other Greek oriented comics I've noticed look very serious. Aletheia is meant to be fun but not kiddy. I think when I wrote a line that Poseidon says in the third issue "This is my house, B!%@H” I knew it would be a while before my sister would let my nephews read it.

Greg: Hahaha. It's funny though how nowadays a young’n is allowed to watch destruction but once there's a curse, it should be censored.

But yes, one mistake that some people might make is that the title of your book is the name of the protagonist we see in the previews, but that’s not necessarily the case. Can you tell us about that and what the title really means for the book?

BL: Yeah, it was a concern. If I had used a male character as the main character I could have avoided that but like any new story I think you go through an education process by just reading the book. In this case I think I just threw the definition of Aletheia in the fourth page just set everything straight.

Aletheia means “the truth” in Greek mythology. The reason I didn’t want a name of a character for the title is because over time the idea is to have stories about different characters other then Thea. I nearly changed the logo from Aletheia to the actual English phrase “The Truth” but I felt by doing that it lost some of the mysticism.

Greg: Is each arc or story going to concentrate on a different reincarnation?

BL: The first few stories do have that feel and concentration. More then that right off the back I feel would make the books just about reincarnation and that isn't where I want to dwell for to long.

Greg: Will we be learning more Greek words next to aletheia?

BL: Yes. The first one is... MAR082065. When you tell your comic shop owner this he'll do something very special for you. And the other one is... APR082192. The way you use that is also by telling your comic shop that number.

Greg: Haha, so we'll be wrapping up here. I heavily look forward to this book like no other. I'm crossing my fingers for an appearance from Theseus, Apollo, and Hephaestus! Any final words before we exit Face to Greg?

BL: I've enjoyed it very much as well.

Just as a side note before I say good bye, a local comic shop in my town was robbed this past weekend and the owner was shot. People are trying to come together to raise some money for him to get better. I'm trying to put together an art auction of Aletheia drawings to help out. If you’re interested in helping out please visit www. ifanboy.com to find out more details.

Thanks, Greg!!!

Greg: No, Bob! Thank you! And a great big thought and prayer to the comic owner and his family.

Everyone can catch the first issue of Aletheia free on myspace before the issue comes out! Here’s the link! Support!